Mobile Technology, Gender and Development is a University of Jyväskylä based research project focusing on the use and cultural meanings of mobile technology in Africa, India and Bangladesh.
From the first post on their blog:
We are a group of five anthropologists doing research on mobile technology, gender and development. We are based in the Department of History and Ethnology of University of Jyväskylä, Finland but our field research areas are in South Asia and Africa.
You can see our project website for further infomation about our project. In this blog we will publish project updates such as abstracts, conference papers, articles, pictures and news related to our field of research. Shorter updates are published through our Twitter account.
And from their website:
In terms of theory, our objective is to challenge the paradigms of development theory as well as the “social shaping of technology” approach. In terms of practice, all projects will contribute to developing both gender-sensitive mobile technology applications and “best practices” guidelines. Our researchers start from a careful ethnographic study of mobile phone use in their research locations, and then proceed to developing suggestions for developmental mobile applications in co-operation with NGOs and other stakeholders. We also identify positive and effective grass-roots solutions for empowering women and girls which have already proven successful, and could be applied to other contexts.
